Clean It Up

UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: AuRavelling79 on April 03, 2007, 08:38:33 pm

Title: Unbelievable!
Post by: AuRavelling79 on April 03, 2007, 08:38:33 pm
What a numpty - yours truly that is!

Yesterday I go to one of my customers. A nice £20 bungalow+conservatory and get stuck in. Either side of the porch door are two lovely terracotta ornamental plant pots with dwarf fir trees in them, each pot sits on three little terracotta "chocks". Lovely.

You guessed - I tip one over with my hose and I watch it gracefully fall over and smash into several large pieces. "Oh XXX!".  ::)

I knock on the door and tell the owner I'm sorry mate and would he accept a free clean as way of compensation? No worries. He goes inside and I turn to carry on and manage to kick the other pot over and watch it smash just like the first one!  :o

I can't face the owner and so finish the job, write a note offering another free clean next time and sneak up to the front door to put it through. As I do the owner comes out to take a letter to the post box, clocks the second pot and its contents all over the patio!

Result? He can't stop laughing and says it would have been difficult to match up the remaining pot anyway!

So ... Two free cleans and a seriously peed off window cleaner!  :'(
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Mr.G on April 03, 2007, 08:46:56 pm
Ha ha! wish I'd been there to see it!  embarrassing or what!
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Sir Squeaky on April 03, 2007, 09:12:12 pm
WFP...who'd have it? ::)
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Mr.G on April 03, 2007, 09:18:23 pm
dunno about wfp, I do that kinda thing with my ladder!
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: SherwoodCleaningSe on April 03, 2007, 09:59:34 pm
Should be a thread.  What's the most pots you've taken out in 1 day.

I must admit I've done a few in my time, never had to give a free clean though.  2 on 1 job is very good though.

Simon
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Paul Coleman on April 03, 2007, 10:21:33 pm
What a numpty - yours truly that is!

Yesterday I go to one of my customers. A nice £20 bungalow+conservatory and get stuck in. Either side of the porch door are two lovely terracotta ornamental plant pots with dwarf fir trees in them, each pot sits on three little terracotta "chocks". Lovely.

You guessed - I tip one over with my hose and I watch it gracefully fall over and smash into several large pieces. "Oh XXX!".  ::)

I knock on the door and tell the owner I'm sorry mate and would he accept a free clean as way of compensation? No worries. He goes inside and I turn to carry on and manage to kick the other pot over and watch it smash just like the first one!  :o

I can't face the owner and so finish the job, write a note offering another free clean next time and sneak up to the front door to put it through. As I do the owner comes out to take a letter to the post box, clocks the second pot and its contents all over the patio!

Result? He can't stop laughing and says it would have been difficult to match up the remaining pot anyway!

So ... Two free cleans and a seriously peed off window cleaner!  :'(

Well I've done the odd one myself but I've never done them in pairs  :)
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: JohnL on April 04, 2007, 07:34:19 am
ah, but they come in pairs in Bristol dont they Malc -  ;)
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: LWC on April 04, 2007, 08:28:33 am
i was at a clean the other day and it had one of those angel ornaments, i saw it coming, i gently pulled the hose and knocked it over smashed the head off...whoops

went and told the owner and apologised, went back, pulled it again and did it again...smashed the arm...double whoops

didnt go and tell him that aswell...

 :D
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Tosh on April 04, 2007, 04:15:24 pm
Malc,

Two free cleans!!! Cough, cough; nurse, get my pills... quick!!!!

I wouldn't go back!!! ;D
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: brett walker on April 04, 2007, 04:23:32 pm
WFP...who'd have it? ::)

you you and you ;D

once knocked and smashed 2 pints over outside soneomes door :-[, they sent me to the shop to get 2 more :'(

Last week when wfp'ing a top window walked straight into a terracotta plant pot cracked my shin on it, its left a right bruise but it didnt break :'( :-[ :P ::)

Brett
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Paul Coleman on April 04, 2007, 04:38:22 pm
WFP...who'd have it? ::)

you you and you ;D

once knocked and smashed 2 pints over outside soneomes door :-[, they sent me to the shop to get 2 more :'(

Last week when wfp'ing a top window walked straight into a terracotta plant pot cracked my shin on it, its left a right bruise but it didnt break :'( :-[ :P ::)

Brett

....and the pot's OK too.
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: ac_cleaning on April 04, 2007, 05:21:06 pm
Would liked have seen you sneak up to front door commando style
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: cottonbud10 on April 04, 2007, 10:23:14 pm
i,m trad,but i did manage to take a ridge tile off and about 8 tiles with it ,when i went to pick up my double point to take it round the otherside of a downstairs bay window,the ladder caught the fancy metal end that hangs at the bottom of the last ridge tile..so be very careful when you lift your ladder to walk it round to somewhere...it could end up costing you £70 to put right
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Russell Macdonald on April 04, 2007, 10:31:43 pm
Was doing a con last year a knocked one of those blue round balls off the wall, it cost her husband nearly £100  :o.

She hated it so was well pleased, told me not to worry about it. When he came round the back she told him his dog broke it.

Plus i still got paid  ;D
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: NWH on April 04, 2007, 10:39:43 pm
This is no wind up,i know this wc personaly he was doing a house one morning with the owners out at work when he walk round the side gate catching his ladder on the sky dish hooking it up on the end of his ladder he then started pulling the plastic hooks out the wall that attatch the cable to the wall before he realised what he`d done,he simply just stuck the dish back on the pole sticking out of the wall and made a quick exit,he didn`t tell the customer he just never went back.
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Sir Squeaky on April 04, 2007, 10:49:01 pm
I smashed a pot years ago, and just didn't go back. :-X

Still, I was working for Ian then, so they would have rang him not me. ;D
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: JM123 on April 05, 2007, 12:50:52 am
nightmare!!

I've broken a few things too, managed to break a custy's door chime on the first clean no less!!  They were fine about it.

Broke a few silly ornaments sitting on the outside sill as well, but the best has to be the time I was poling a patio door when it just fell in front of me and broke into a million bits, glass everywhere and bits of plastic all over the doorstep - I just stood there surveying the damage like a rabbit in the headlights, turned out that they were having the door re-fitted as it wasn't lined up right the first time, I didn't know what to say.  He was fine about it and apologised for not saying to me etc etc cuz it was just propped up against the frame at the time. 

Talk about 'oh crap'
Title: Re: Unbelievable!
Post by: Steve_Richardson on April 05, 2007, 10:45:30 am
...perfect opportunity to grab your face and scream:

"MY EYE MY EYE GLASS IN MY EYE"

...as you back away slowly down the drive (maybe commando style, but that would be up to you)  :P